Edghill, Rosemary. The Sword of Maiden’s Tears (New York: Daw Books, 1994) 284 p.

Library School Students at Columbia University help an elf prince recover his magic sword. The students are Ruth Marlowe who is “tall and blue-eyed, brown-haired and sensible,” (p. 9); Naomi Nasmyth, a doctoral candidate, is “tall and vivid and poised and serene and organized. Black hair and hazel eyes and sangfroid that Emma Peel would envy—not to mention good at games,” (p. 19); Michael Peacock, a tall handsome man with a mysterious past; Philip LeStrange, a sarcastic computer geek; and Jane Greyson, a short, slightly plump girl who has “wit but no real sense of humor.” Jane came from a family that could (and did) trace its lineage back to the Signers (of the Declaration of Independence) on both sides and who (Ruth gathered, mostly by omission) felt that a library degree was the height of intellectual attainment for womankind; their collective psychic feet firmly mired in the past where the two professional tracks for nonmarrying daughters were nurse and librarian.” (p. 40). Library studies don’t enter into the story, but get mentioned occasionally: “I hate cataloging, I hate cataloging exams; everybody buys LC cataloging nowadays which means that some gnome in the basement of the Library of Congress or probably his computer is making us all file Outlaws of Sherwood under Folklore and books on the Miss America pageant under Beauty Aids and what’s the point?” (p. 145).